You, Me, and the Sea
by wcfarrow
Summary: What will be, will be. A collection of brief, intertwined vignettes, as told by a coward, a ghost, and the sea.
1. starfish, as told by a coward

We met the night you almost died. The moon glittered on the water, heavy in the sky, and I watched the waves roll again and again and again. I was here because I had nowhere else to go. You were there because it was the only place you could be.

The tide washed you up, saltwater frosting your fur, and for a heartbeat, the world froze. You were made of drowning and dreaming, and I could not believe my eyes. What was I supposed to do, confronted with the most beautiful ghost of the sea I had ever seen?

And then you coughed, a ghost no more. I stumbled over the sands to reach you before the tide could steal your breath again, and together we crawled to the higher reaches of the shore with gritty sand sinking into our fur. The effort was almost too much for you, though, and we never reached the grass. Instead, you rolled onto your back and heaved seawater from your lungs. That was as far as you would go for the night.

With your limbs and tail spread out, you looked all the world like a starfish tossed from the waves, and I felt the urge to return you to the depths from whence you came. Somehow, I knew you belonged to the sea more than the shore, that you would perish without the tides to keep you afloat. But we all keep trinkets from the ocean, gathering gull feathers for our nests and shells for our dens, collecting the bits of the sea to make ourselves feel like we can master the untamed deep, folly as that may always be.

I needed to feel some power over the world after so many moons without. I needed the strength, the courage, the justification to stand up in the face of my fears. I could never master you, never own you, but I think I took you in as a trinket anyway. You were my starfish, my piece of the sea.

I needed you.


	2. sea foam, as told by a ghost

I woke to the beat of your heart, thrumming beneath my ear. It turned over with the tide, rolling in, rolling out. In, out, in, out, in, out. Somehow, my breath did the same, learning the rhythm of the world from the pace you set, and I lost myself in your tides. There was peace to the world in those moments. All the fear, the failure, the burdens, they all vanished, carried out into the wild sea. For an eternity, I was safer than I had been in moons.

Then you opened your eyes, and the life left me.

You were a picture of the sea, silver in the morning mist, your bright eyes slicing through the haze like miniature suns. I wanted to burn away under your gaze, to vanish on the breeze before you could catch proper sight of me, and the closest I could come to that was to streak down the shore and pray.

The ocean didn't take me, like it had before. Any claim it once held over me was lost, and the sea foam wreathed around my paws. The froth bubbled up and receded, unconcerned with my plight. It wanted to be free, just as I did, except it could be. Meanwhile, I was trapped. You were at my back, and the sea loomed before me, each more intimidating than the last. I could not cross the ocean again, and I could not meet your gaze, nor your sea-bound heart as it carved its way into your face.

So I turned, and I ran, and like the sea foam, I left you behind.


	3. sand, as told by a coward

There were tracks in the sand, and I could have chased them to the ends of the world. For a brief moment, I had you close, my prize from the sea. Then, in the next heartbeat, you fled. I didn't understand why you didn't stay, but I knew I could not follow. Dawn breaking signaled the end of my freedom, as it did every day. By the light of the moon, I was untouchable. Invincible. And with the sun breathing down my back, I had to become small again.

They came from the north, arranged in a jagged line. There were three of them, loping across the sand with their tails held high in the breeze, and the hard pace they set told me everything I needed to know. I was late. I was disobeying our leader. I was not to leave again.

Ever.

When they encircled me, I didn't fight. The ring was too tight, their claws too keen. My heart too fragile. A single misstep could have seen me shatter like sea glass, so I let them guide me home in silence. We all knew what I deserved, and that I would accept it with my head lowered. We also knew that within days, I would find a new way to slip out into the night and heed the call of the sea. The cycle was unbreakable, a constant push and pull between heartache and hearts dead altogether.

It would end when someone died. Either me, or our leader, and neither one of us had any intention of perishing soon. Nor would we flee. He had a Clan counting on him, and I knew nothing beyond the shelter of the dunes and the song of the ocean. There was no other place in the world for us to be.

As we slipped our way into the dunes with the sun lighting the way, I thought of you. The starfish, the ghost. I thought of you and I hoped that you would return someday, and with you, the brief thrill of agency. My tail hung lower after that thought, my paws fell heavier. I hoped you would return, and I left you a trail made of sand.


	4. waves, as told by a ghost

It was hard to remember when the world was still. The wind ripped through my fur, and the sun threw shadows over the sand, creeping down from the dunes to slither beneath my feet. I ran from the dark and the light alike, never gracing the earth for more than a precious moment, never pausing for more than a breath. The world was not still, but very much alive.

I did not feel alive. I felt dead. I felt ready to be buried. I felt the earth closing in over my head, and I felt there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Which was true, in a way. One misstep sent me sprawling, and the strength to rise trickled away with the tide. I had nothing to do but breathe, but wait. Perhaps, with enough time, the sand would carry me into its depths, and a dune would rise in my place, studded with flotsam and jetsam and thin sawgrass. New life as a dune would hold purpose, I thought. More purpose than I had with my body lying on the beach.

So I laid myself out in the sun to dry, and waited for the dune to swallow me whole. It never did. Never would. But I waited, because I did not feel alive. I waited, because I felt dead.

And by the time the sun started to fall, the feeling passed. Hunger ravaged my belly. Pain lanced through my limbs. I ached. I felt. All the sensation that had abandoned me rushed in again, a flurry of whitecap waves pounding the shore.

Alive. Dead. Alive again. One wave after another, fathomless as the sea.

I wished it would end.


	5. storms, as told by a coward

The storms kept me from following you that very night. I wanted to bring you home, to place you on a pedestal, to put others' treasures to shame. How many of my Clanmates had ever saved someone from drowning? How many had ever walked the shore by night? No one but me, I assumed, and yet I had no proof. You were gone, and only the press of your paws in the sand spoke to your existence. My starfish. My ghost.

But the rain washed you away, hurtling thick and fast to the earth. It punched holes in the sand, plastered the verbena to the dunes, and boiled the sea. Not that I made it to the sea, not when a personal tempest blocked my way.

He hated the sight of me. Hated that he had to stand before me. Hated that no matter what he said, we would never change. We were both too afraid of the consequences.

Still, he thundered into my den, howling and raging and calling upon our ancestors to condemn me because he could hardly wait to do it himself. Honor stopped him from leaving my body out for the gulls. Honor stopped the clan surrendering me to the sea.

"You cannot leave!" he snarled. His paw shot out. My vision flashed, studded with lightning and stars. "They cannot know of you!"

He meant the world. It didn't know. If it did, I would already be dead. I told him that.

More lightning. Another peal of thunder, ringing in my ears.

"You are an abomination," he growled. "You are alive as our punishment."

I could finish his speech in my sleep. I was alive as a conduit for his sins. The Clan's sins. My survival ensured their safe passage to the afterlife. My survival meant they were forgiven when they died. But that did not mean they had to like me. Who loves their flaws, their failings? Who cares for the selfish mistakes they make along the way?

My twisted paw marked me as a backwards beast. My shortened tail proved me barely half the creature they wished I could have been. The meaning of my folded ears and crooked tooth changed every day, molded to make me the manifestation of his latest sins. I was wretched. We all knew it, and I paid for it.

The storms raged all night, battering sea and soul alike. I did not sleep.


	6. ships, as told by a ghost

We all have our ports of call. I was never any different. No matter how often I tried to outrun the shore, hurling myself between ships of my own making, I had to stop eventually.

It began when I was young and brave, two traits barely distinguishable from one another. I hated all the hours spent behind wood, behind glass, behind doors. I hated the itch of my collar against my neck, and I hated the muted sound of the sea, so close but still an ocean away. My hatred gave me courage, enough of it to flee, to board a ship and never look back.

If I hated you, maybe I would have had the courage to face you. But I didn't know you, and hating the unknown was impossible. Fearing it, though? Living in the shadow of the unknown, trembling to my core, seemed all too likely. I had no courage, and even if I had, there were no ships waiting, no voyages or passages or journeys.

There was you, me, and the sea. There was no escape..


	7. tide pools, as told by a coward

The pools were a blight on my perfect shore. When I looked to the east, if I squinted hard enough, I could see the coastline curve away, chasing the rising sun. But the western view was marred by battered grey stone and jagged cliffs. They cut my world short, even shorter than it already was, and until I could move mountains, they would always remain there, ugly and squat on the horizon.

The Clan worshipped the pools, those shallow things. Each pool was sacred, a trove of the ocean's treasures, deposited for the Clan to enjoy at its leisure.

Except for me.

No one dared to foul the holy waters with my presence. Not even I wanted to pollute the pools. But after the storm passed, where else would you go? Too weak to save yourself when I found you, I doubted you had managed to go far. I wondered if you had even survived. Only the pools could protect you, I thought, with their gifts just below the surface, ripe for the taking.

I still needed you, so I went to the pools.


	8. message in a bottle, as told by a ghost

The words failed me. Not because my throat was scorched raw with salt, nor because my mind was burned out by the heat. They failed me because you were too quick to put others in my mouth.

You said I was a starfish, and they believed you.

You said I was a gift, and they believed you.

You said I was a solution, and they believed you.

Somehow, even when they threatened you, berated you, looked down their noses and bared their fangs at you, you made them accept me as the answer to their prayers. They carried me to your home, brought me food and sweet water. They dressed wounds I barely knew I had, and they loved me like I would shatter otherwise.

You painted me as a message, sealed up in glass and cast to the waves. You made me an omen.

I did not believe you.


	9. sharks, as told by a coward

At the first sign of blood, the sharks come running. They writhe and swarm, flashing their teeth as they close in for the kill. The blood makes them mad, whips them into a frenzy. The hunt, once a test of survival, is a show of sport.

So too with the Clan.

They appeared around every corner, assaulting me with their questions and insults, often rolled into one. You were a novelty, and they smelled the lie in my heart as it welled up and threatened to surface. Where was the proof? Why didn't someone else find you first? Could monsters really receive omens? Could they dream?

The first three questions I could never answer to their satisfaction, no matter how hard I tried, how hard I lied. But the last? That was a question of my own, one I could answer. Yes, monsters could dream. I knew this, because I dreamed of the day when I was no longer one. In my mind, it was also a day with you, somehow.

So I kept the sharks at bay. Better than ever, I lied.


	10. squid, as told by a ghost

Your home had too much reach. Its freedom smothered me, caging me in with its vastness. I had no sense of where to turn, no idea what to consider safe. Your Clan worshipped me even as it made me prisoner to fresh fish and safe waters. I could not bathe without being watched, could not sleep without being guarded. As far as I could see, what they did to you, they did to me. The only difference was that they meant my imprisonment to be a service instead of a sentence.

I was trapped between tentacles, falling ever close to the mouth of the beast. With nowhere to go, surrounded on all sides, I saw my doom. It was ringed with a thousand different paths, but it was too late to choose any of them.

I got the grim sense that I would die searching for freedom as the squid swallowed me whole.


	11. the shallows, as told by a coward

They were transparent. I could see through them in the same way I could see through the sea where it licked the shore. All the sand and stones and little round shells at the bottom were visible, rolling with the waves. They were not hidden, but exposed to the eyes of the world without hesitation. They had no ulterior motives; to be ulterior, they would have needed to be concealed, not left sparkling in the sun.

I heard the way they talked of you. I knew what they wanted to do to you. Your appearance at the pools meant that they were finally free. Their sins were forgiven and their lives were their own again. No longer did they have to mind themselves or bow and scrape and be kind. They could be whoever they wished to be, because they thought you were a godsend.

They wanted to place you on a pedestal. They wanted to take my starfish away, to make you untouchable and glorious and golden, all at a distance. Some even wanted you to lead the Clan. You were, to them, a creature of omens and fortune.

And I was not.

I realized too late what saving you meant. I realized too late that lying about your divinity sealed my fate. Your presence granted them the pardon they had been waiting for all their lives. It gave them the excuse they needed.

They no longer needed me, now that they were no longer cursed by their own wrongdoings. They could start their foul cycle all over again. And they did, in a flurry of fur, of fangs, of bitter red blood splashed out on the sands.

I felt the shallows lap at my sides as I bled. Oh, how transparent they were.


	12. sunshine, as told by a ghost

It was my turn to find you. The sun was harsh and heavy, and the Clan brimming with levity despite it. Cats sang, they danced their way through camp. They celebrated with every fiber of their beings as they proclaimed to the sky that the beast was dead, slain by my claw.

I did not understand at first. I had killed no one, not once. I did not have the stomach for any death but perhaps my own. I came to understand, however, that the blood was not directly on my paws.

I only knew because I found you bleeding your life into the sea.

You could have never injured yourself that way. There had to have been others, even if there was no fur under your claws. I could not understand why you didn't fight back. My escort to the beach tried to explain it, tried to say you were too twisted a thing to know when to unsheathe its claws, but it still made no sense to me.

How could they honor a stranger as a godly gift, and one of their own as little more than a smear of wet sand beneath their feet? And even though I didn't want to face you still, didn't know how to thank you, I ordered them to save you.

I ordered them to save you, to pull you in from the salt and sun, to dress your wounds and give you peace. I threatened to revoke my blessing if they refused, to leave them bound to their sins again, but this time with no vessel to remind them how shameful they were.

Out in the hot afternoon sun, they obeyed. They carried you home and bundled you into the shade to live or to die. All the while, they watched me with fear in their eyes, as if they were looking at the sun for warmth and were burned by it instead.


	13. shells, as told by a coward

I never put shells by my nest. They never allowed me anything beautiful or precious, because there were no treasures fit for me. That was how I knew I had died: there were shells all around my nest.

But you must have died. We must have gone to the same place. Because you were there, too, curled a little beside me with your fur groomed so soft and sleek. Death was a comfort for you, it seemed, and for me, it was a dull ache, pounding away just below the skin.

I lay there for moons, it seemed, before you stirred, and to my great surprise, you did not look right through me. Instead, you met my eyes. You told me I was safe. You flinched when I asked how we died.

We were not dead. You were still something holy, and for the first time in my life, I was under someone's protection. Yours. By holding the Clan's absolution hostage, you saved my life.

I pushed a seashell your way, one shaped like a fly's wing, edged with razor ridges and bands of brown. It was the prettiest one I could see, and I thought you needed some shells for your nest, too.


	14. fish, as told by a ghost

You hardly ate, but you told me that was fine. I forced them to bring you fish, to strip away the scale and bone so that you could crunch at it without fear of choking or starving, hindered by your crooked teeth. They resented me for my interference, revered me for the powers only I knew I did not have. Whatever judgment they feared I would pass, I could never give. I could pretend, though, and you helped me.

Not that you gave me advice. Between sloppy bites of minnows and mackerel, you told me what you believed. Sometimes, when the sedative seeds were just kicking in, you called me your starfish. Sometimes, when they were wearing off, you begged me to save you, like I was supposed to. Like I was already doing. I was keeping the Clan at bay, protecting you from their wrath, their cruel claws and cold hearts.

I didn't know what to do when you asked that of me, except to bring you more fish.

I don't think they fed you very well. You were skinny to begin with, and after just a couple bites, you always said you were fine. That you ate more than you did the day before. As if you didn't know that everyone else ate their fill and then some just behind your back.

I kept bringing you fish. I couldn't stop.


	15. palm trees, as told by a coward

When I could walk again, you took me away. It was supposed to be a day trip, spent seeking communion with things holier than thou, and you were supposed to go alone, save for me. You told them I had to come along, that it was part of the judgment.

But we passed the pools. We disappeared around the bend in the shore that I had never seen before. We walked and stumbled and crawled across sands I never even imagined, not even when I used to lie in my den and imagine the world beyond the shore.

We were running away. You told me you were good at it, which I believed; I never did forget the way you vanished that first dawn after the sea gave you to me. But you also said that you were angry. That you hated the Clan, but not me.

It was supposed to be the other way around. The Clan was supposed to be taken care of first. Such were the rules of my life. But you turned those rules on their head and we left them behind to rot without a second glance.

We traveled the shore until night, and then we traveled another day. I expected to turn back all the while, but you went forward, forward, forward still. The breeze curled around us, lifting us onward, and somewhere, birds shrieked and cawed and skimmed the waves. Dunes frosted with grass gave way to flat meadows, great expanses of green, which in turn grew into lush jungles, dense with vines and leafy plants that were bigger than anything I had ever seen. Best of all were the palm trees, towering over us and throwing long shadows over the beach as they stretched to the sun. We stopped beneath one of these to rest on the fourth day, and I loved the rough scratch of its bark against my back, the sweet scent when I scratched and scratched and scratched until its trunk finally cracked open, revealing insides like bleached sand.

The world was lively, out by the palms. So was I.


	16. reefs, as told by a ghost

You lived out here, now more than ever. Before, you had been a beast of burden, meant only as a tool to ease the Clan along the road to forgiveness. I don't know what they did before to think their sins so great, but I know that what they did to you never made their hearts any kinder. Their actions just turned them blacker and blacker with every day.

Here, though, you didn't have to face them. We made ourselves at home in a grove of palms, and you flourished. You still couldn't run, not with your twisted paw, but you could fish with it, hooking them close to your chest with a flick and a splash. And even though you couldn't climb, your tail no good for balance, we discovered that you could swim, just a little. The tide pools made for great practice, because you could touch the bottom if you needed to, even if you never wanted to.

I couldn't leave you alone, though. Even if you were at peace, you were not safe. I did the bulk of the hunting. I built our den from palm fronds and gull feathers. I kept my eyes peeled for trouble that you could not fight. You needed a reef to shelter you from the storms if you wanted to survive in your new world, and I was not heartless enough to deny you that. After ripping you from an empty existence, I would be no better than the Clan if I abandoned you here.

I had to be the reef, no matter how much I wanted to flee. There was still a wide world calling for me, and I had to ignore it. I couldn't leave you to die. I could never.

So I stayed. I don't think you ever knew why.


	17. jellyfish, as told by a coward

Sometimes, they washed up on the shore in great droves, their empty bodies shivering in the breeze. They had tentacles that could almost reach the water, but they did not have the will to stretch, to pull themselves back in. They stagnated on the beach, drying out under the sun until the sand smelled of their rotting carcasses for miles.

You picked your way around them delicately, and forbid me from approaching the sea when they came. You said they stung cats, flooding them with poison and killing them slowly, mercilessly. They never blinked, never regretted it.

It sounded familiar. It sounded like the life I didn't want to return to.

I let you walk between the jellyfish without me, let you brave their vicious sting. You were my starfish, my greatest and only treasure. You protected me from the jellyfish and the sharks and the sea.

I think I began to love you.


	18. tides, as told by a ghost

You changed after the jellyfish left. So did I, albeit back into the thing I once was instead of the protector I thought I'd become.

I wanted to run away again, like I had done my whole life. Never slowing, always seeking some new adventure. The sea was constantly changing, and the shore remained mostly the same. I wanted something different once more, ached for it deep in my bones.

But you just wanted stability and love and trust, all things you never knew you deserved. And answers, as it turned out.

We used to be quiet things, creatures of few words. We didn't talk unless we had to, you on account of your skewed teeth being so painful when they caught your lips, me on account of fearing that might tongue might betray me. Except while I was held fast by fear, you conquered the pain. With blood dribbling down your chin, you asked me why I almost drowned the night you pulled me from the water. You asked me why I ran at first, why I saved you later. Why we came here, why we stayed together, why, why, why.

I had no answers. Not for you, not for myself. I wanted to tell you, but it was as if the tides were going out and dragging me with. I was caught in them, trapped in a sea of fear, clawing my way towards an ounce of courage even as I was swept farther out on the waves. They floated me back to shore sometimes, usually in my weariest states, but ripped me away again before I could ever give you what you wanted.

I never gave you the answers you wanted. You stopped asking.


	19. gulls, as told by a coward

The gulls were pretty things, even if you didn't think so. I hated to see you chase them off, screeching and snarling until they took flight in a massive white cloud. They were hungry, just as we were, and no matter how much we took from the tide pools, there was always more. I urged you to be kind to them, to let them rest and eat their fill, but you said they would eat us out of our home, drive us to starvation, and so away you chased them every time.

For a while I thought they would starve because we lived, because we pushed them out. I started to think of you like I thought of the Clan, and I could see pulses of fear and greed whenever I looked at you. I thought they were your emotions. It took time to realize they were mine.

Once I knew the gulls would not die because two wretches kept the tide pools to themselves, I realized I was afraid. What would happen if you left me, if you chased the gulls to the end of the earth and never came back? I could never follow you, not that far. There was no way.

I was greedy, too. I wanted to fly like the gulls. I wanted the freedom to explore wherever I wished, to abandon the hot sands and roam the winds. I wanted big white wings that looked like clouds and smelled like salt. I wanted things I could not have.

I don't remember when I started to chase the gulls away with you, but I did. They taunted me endlessly. I never stopped wanting.


	20. diving, as told by a ghost

I had to go deeper than ever to find myself again. I had to push past the currents of fear and longing and hollowness for things without name until I reached the bottom.

It was peaceful there, when I could dive that deep.

Not in the sea itself, of course. The deep held creatures that could eat you or I in a single bite. I did not take chances in their domain. I never swam far from shore.

But at night, I liked to dive within myself, to reexamine my choices, my life. It brought me solace and direction. I trusted what I found when I reached the well of peace deep inside.

Until it told me to leave you behind.

Suddenly diving deep meant dredging up every hint of doubt in my bones. How could I be anything, anyone, if I spent my days chained to you, keeping you safe from all the things you couldn't do? How could I find adventure again when I worried about you taking too long a walk from our edge of the shore? The Clan haunted me, angry shadows armed with moonlit teeth; they were betrayed by our lies, and I had stolen their ticket to amnesty away all those moons ago. Sometimes, I could not sleep because I imagined them in the bushes beyond the palms, waiting for the signal to attack, to destroy us.

I could get away from them, though, if only I left you behind, left you to the mercy of the elements and the Clan and the sea.

Except I couldn't. I wanted to but I never could. So I stopped diving in deep, because I knew if I did, one day, I'd leave my heart there, and I'd resurface with the gall to desert you instead. I would never be able to live with that.


	21. kelp, as told by a coward

Many things washed up on our shore, but nothing scared you more than the kelp. It was brown and slimy, and as the sun set it to dry, it was salty to the taste, with a texture that set my fur on end. Worse yet, a strand caught around your paw, and you yowled like the world was going to end right then.

I had seen you flee before, and I had seen you with terror in your eyes, but to hear it rip from your throat? To know that your horror had a voice so thin and shrill and piercing? My heart shuddered, clutching at my ribs, filled with dread for what might come next. But there was nothing more once I freed you from the kelp's wet grasp. Nothing but heavy breaths and a keening that never quite made it from your chest.

I knew better than to ask. You were never inclined to answer. Instead, I led you from the shore, to the safety of our palm frond den, and there you slept the day away.

We went hungry that night, because I could not hunt, because you would not wake. You begged for your life in your sleep, and struggled as if bound and sinking into the sea. I thought it might have had something to do with your life before me, before us, but you wouldn't say.

You just asked me to clear the kelp in the morning while you went hunting, so I did.


	22. coral, as told by a ghost

The reef was breaking down. All the little fragments of coral were fracturing, scraping against one another as the current prised them from their homes. They spun out of control, at the mercy of the sea, which had no mercy indeed.

I was drowning, even on dry land. Every step brought back the memory of the dark and the deep, of the reaching kelp tendrils that tried to cradle me into oblivion. I told you that I would hunt, but I couldn't, not with a gaping abyss opening in my head. Every shadow was another strand of kelp come to claim me, every breeze was the sound of my lungs caving in.

The coral bits of me spiraling away made it impossible to focus. They trapped me in my own head, circled me endless. They danced like they owed me no allegiance, and I would swear some laughed like they found my fear to be a delight. Even reason didn't bring them home to me; they didn't care that if I broke down, if their home reef shattered, they would be lost forever.

I was losing myself to memory, there in the forest by the shore. The coral was drifting away.


	23. crabs, as told by a coward

The Clan believed that crabs were a sign of foul luck. They were stubborn creatures with vicious claws, and they either appeared alone, skittering out of sight at a moment's notice, or they came in angry droves, covering the sand with their shuffling and clicking until it looked like the earth was alive and roiling.

I could not shake everything of my past, which meant I kept the crabs away from our den. When they scuttled up to the palms, I swatted at them and snarled even though I had no idea how to fight. But neither did the crabs. So long as I swiped at them, kicked sand at them, snarled at them, they turned and left us alone. They did not bring their misfortune into our den.

Until you came home from hunting.

Looking back, it must have been a sign. Not only did you come back with empty jaws and hollow eyes, but you came back just behind a tiny little crab. It was young, fresh from the sea and mottled like the sand. I didn't see it until I stepped out to greet you, and by then it was too late. I moved aside to let you into the den, and a whisker ahead of you, the crab waltzed in.

I chased it away, of course. I swept its foul trace from the sand, kneading it with my paws until only cool, fresh grains were on top. But trouble is not something that can be scrubbed away. It lingers, biding its time.

We knew trouble after that. We were never free.


	24. swimming, as told by a ghost

I could not dive. I could not hunt. But I could swim. It was mindless enough to slip into a tide pool and turn small circles until the sun came down. I felt sheltered in the pools, with their stone walls and rocky bottoms. They were callous and rough and cool to the touch, and they kept in all the loose coral, all the rampant memories that kept breaking free.

I was never alone, though. You insisted on following me every time to practice your own swimming skills. Sometimes, I didn't mind; teaching you how to better manage in the water meant getting out of my own head. Sometimes, though, I hated it. I wanted peace and quiet and solitude and strength, and you took all of those away with your presence. You were impossible to ignore or abandon, no matter how much I wanted to try. The guilt would crash over me and pull me under, violent in its touch.

You would not survive without me. I wondered if I could survive any longer with you.

So I kept swimming, swimming in circles with the sun on my back, until I had an idea that might do us both good, more good than we could ever do for each other. Then I kept swimming some more.


	25. vacation, as told by a coward

It was your idea to take a vacation. You needed a break from the palms and the pools and the past that was drip drip dripping down your spine, trying to pull you under with its weight. Home was no longer home to you the same way it had become for me, and because I thought I loved you, I agreed to go.

We walked, farther than we had walked to reach our home in the first place. It took us days to find anything other than golden sands and pleasant seas, but at least we knew what we were looking for. It had to be something different. Something brand new. And we found it in a sprawling haven that you called a city.

The sky was blotted out by grey stone spires, and the sand gave way to a solid black earth that scorched our paws by the light of day. We crept into the city by the light of the moon, the salt of the sea replaced by an aching sting in our noses.

The city was acrid and cold and impossible to understand at only a glance. Somehow, it made you seem more alive than ever before. You walked with purpose through those streets, holding your chin high. Your eyes were clearer than I'd seen them ever since the day the kelp tried to drag you down, and once, I heard you purr. It was like thunder, filling all the air around us, and I wanted to believe it would last forever.

But this was a vacation, and you promised we would go back to the palms soon. I didn't expect to stay very long at all.


	26. pier, as told by a ghost

The city brought me new life, because it was just like my old life. It reeked of the way things were before I boarded a ship and turned my back on the shore, and nostalgia carved itself a niche in my chest, heavy and warm with the weight of the past. Absorbed in the lights and sounds and smells, I almost forgot you more than once. I let my heart lead when I still needed my head, if only for a while.

But I wanted to show you something you would enjoy before I brought you somewhere safe. Before I left you in someone else's care. So when the tide rose and the moon was out in full, I took you to the piers, the great wooden bridges that lead to nowhere but the sea.

It was stunning. The wind whipped your fur and the moon cloaked you in a soft halo, which you would have never known before. You raced up the pier with your crooked gait, laughing as the waves sloshed against the supports below. Up there, we were happy, caressed by the rising winds and the dark of night.

But then you stepped on a rotten plank. It creaked, groaned, snapped beneath you with a mighty crack even the stars could hear. You screamed, unless that was me, unless that was both of us, and then you fell, in my sight one moment, gone from it the next.

I may have planned to leave you, but never like this. You were meant to be scooped up by warm hands, to be folded in by soft, lilting voices. To be collared but sheltered for the rest of your days. The sea would not give you these things, though. I plunged through the pier after you.


	27. shore, as told by a coward

I wanted the shore. I wanted our palm den and our tide pools and to feel the soft give of sand beneath my feet once again. I even wanted the gulls despite my envy, the crabs despite my superstition. Instead, though, I got tossing waves, whipped higher and higher as the clouds began to cover the moon.

I saw the shore at least once more, when the currents bucked me to the surface. It glimmered with false stars, cold and black and white, and the stars never blinked, not even when I went under again.

Perhaps the shore did not want me.


	28. driftwood, as told by a ghost

It wasn't a storm, but it was going to become one. I felt the air swirl into spirals, threatening thunder as it drew clouds across the sky, and I ducked beneath the waves as another one crashed through, rolling me back towards the pier.

I could see you ahead, slick silver on the water, struggling to stay afloat. Of the two of us, I was the better swimmer by far, and even I was having my fair share of trouble keeping my head above water. You? You were doomed the moment the pier collapsed beneath you.

The pier knew it, too. It didn't send its debris your way, not when you needed it most. Maybe if the rotten plank had drifted past you, you might have latched onto it and been carried back to the beach when the tide next rolled in. There, maybe you would have been rushed to warmth and hidden away in a grey stone tower to watch the city pass by for the rest of your days.

But the plank came to me instead, and I sank my claws into the wood, wincing as it splintered at my touch. And I held on, too. I didn't fight its drift, didn't push it towards you as you bobbed into the distance.

I held on, and it carried me out to sea.


	29. breeze, as told by a coward

I thought you were coming for me. I thought you loved me because I thought I loved you, and I thought that was how it always worked. I thought a lot of things between short, starved breaths and the hammer blow of rushing waves; many of those thoughts were mine, but many were death's as well.

But always most important, I thought you were coming for me, and I thought wrong. Instead, the breeze came, pushing the tides back out to sea again. I was soaked to the skin and barely afloat; it whistled over me without a care. You, though, were perched atop something, and that same breeze caught you by the tail. It pulled and pulled and pulled you away, insistent on showing you new waters, new worlds.

My starfish was swept out to sea again on nothing more than the breeze.

I thought it was unfair.


	30. island, as told by a ghost

I washed ashore, and the sand folded me in. I had been here before, not in body but in spirit; bedraggled and weak and in fear of my life. You had once found me like this, spit out on the sand as a gift from the sea, and I almost expected you to pull me to the dunes and rest your tail across my side while listened to the steady hum of your heart.

There were no dunes behind me.

There was no tail over my back.

There was no trace of your heart.

There was, though, ocean all around me, and a hint of dawn on the horizon. It stained the sea with brilliant red and gold, and the seafoam frothed like blood.


	31. undertow, as told by the sea

The is a current to the world, a way of things that must proceed. It sweeps up beneath the unwary and alters their course in the minutiae and the grand alike. A single choice may replace one fate with another. A series of choices may lead back to the same destiny one once held.

The current holds fast. It claims some lives, spares others. It does what it wills, unbound to anything at all.

Sometimes it brings prosperity. Other times, comedy. Still other times, tragedy. But as the current works, gliding along, there is only one rule.

What will be, will be.


End file.
